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In Mexico, UN Women and eleven other UN agencies launched a campaign against early and child marriage, to establish eighteen as the minimum age for marriage at federal and state level without exception. The Mexican Senate and the Congress of Oaxaca announced reforms on the issue, while the President pledged to support the campaign and eradicate early marriage in law and practice.
As part of activities marking the 16 days of activism against gender-based violence in Nigeria, UNIC (United Nations Information Centres) in collaboration with International Federation of Women Lawyers (FIDA) and West African Women Association (WAWA) organized a seminar to explore the legal frameworks in support of women's rights. The seminar identified and addressed the causes of violence against women and the need to speak out, network and raise awareness. Over 120 participants of whom over 100 were women, attended the seminar held at the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) Secretariat, Lagos Liaison Office in Nigeria.
UNDP and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Korea hosted an Expert Meeting in 2016 to discuss approaches and challenges provided by the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) with regards to the reduction and elimination of Gender-Based Violence (GBV). The meeting brought together more than 50 practitioners from Governments, United Nations agencies, Academia and Civil Society to explore the intersections of GBV with major social development themes and identify integrated approaches to reducing GBV to help achieve multiple SDG targets.
IFAD supported inovative projects to address gender-based violence, such as the courage brigades in the state of Madhya Pradesh, India. (The courage brigades is a empowerment project initiated by the Indian state government with support from IFAD. Thtough this project, women are forming committees with local leaders and fighting malnutrition, caste violence, domestic abuse and corruption)
UNRWA, working with local NGOs and community-based structures and organizations, in addition to UN agencies at the field level, engages men, women, as well as youth and children in the awareness-raising activities through discussion groups and support groups. UNRWA employs art, theatre and photography as a way of reaching out to the community and creating space for self-expression and support through different activities. During 2015, UNRWA was able to reach out to more than 30,000 community members including men, women, and youth to raise awareness on priority issues related to GBV according to field contexts, such as child marriage and domestic violence. Awareness-raising sessions and events also serve to increase community knowledge on available services.
UN Women’s Safe Cities and Safe Public Spaces Global Flagship Initiative has helped Quezon City, in the Philippines, take the first step in its safe city programme towards ensuring safe streets: a scoping study that collects information on violence against women and girls in public spaces. The study, drawing in part on the use of safety audits, where women and men, girls and boys walk through neighbourhoods to identify safe and unsafe spaces, revealed a number of issues that had long remained unnoticed, such as insufficient legal protection and fear of retaliation from reporting crimes. Quezon City is just one of 23 cities around the world working with UN Women, local governments, women's rights organizations and other partners to prevent and respond to sexual violence against women and girls in public spaces. They include New Delhi, Rabat, New York, Kigali, and Port Moresby, and since 2015 also Medellin, and Brussels.
In Jordan, UN Women implemented a program to enhance Syrian Women’s Empowerment in Camp Settings. Within the framework of the Jordan Response Plan to the Syria Crisis 2016-18, UN Women operates safe spaces for Syrian women in Za’atari refugee camp. UN Women has been operating in Za’atari camp since early 2013 and in these settings provides a range of services. Among other services, UN Women provides awareness raising sessions on domestic violence and early marriage.
The IFAD gender team promoted household methodologies (HHM) in the loan portfolio: by enabling families to plan a vision for their household together and analyse why they are not currently achieving their vision, gender inequalities are frequently identified as one of the main reasons for preventing the household from progressing. Intimate partner violence is often cited as an area that needs to be addressed. HHMs are practices in several IFAD-supported projects eg Nigeria, Rwanda, Uganda.
In 2015, UNHCR conducted 6,995 awareness raising campaigns on SGBV prevention and response and 2,188 community-based committees/groups were working on SGBV prevention and response.
UNRWA has developed context-specific GBV prevention initiatives in all its five fields of operation (Gaza, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, and the West Bank), building on local partnerships and working with community structures. These initiatives have focused on developing effective approaches to tackle root causes of GBV, addressing power imbalances and gender inequality and engaging communities in the effort to combat GBV. Progress has also been made in involving men and boys in awareness-raising activities and key services, such as involving men in preconception care and family planning counselling in UNRWA health centres.